China Red Pagoda

Continuing along the Yangtze River on our river cruise we came to the Red Pagoda.

 This was the third day of the river cruise when we docked at Shi Bao Bhai and had a tour of the Red Pagoda.

 We had to cross this long footbridge to get to the island.

 The Red Pagoda is referred to as one of the eight construction wonders fo the world, built into the side of a rocky clift face and constructed without the use of nails.  It's 12 stories and stands over 100 feet high.  Lots of interesting Chinese figures.

 We had quite a climb up to the top.  It's the largest Pagoda in the world that was built without nails. There was a spectacular view of the river and valley below through this circular Chinese window.

 Inside the and on the grounds lots of interesting statues of Chinese warriors and emperors.

 This was an area where the Chinese would retreat to when one dynasty of another got into defeat and had to withdraw.  Also General Chiang Kai Shek retreated to here when the Japanese took over China and they held out here.

 A view of the bridge from the top.  Shows how high up we had to climb in the Pagoda.

 Our tour guide told the group this was a Chinese eternity bridge.  Very hard to get up on.  But if a couple crossed over it they would be together for eternity and just till death.  We thought that interesting.  After the group moved on, we hung back, and then we crossed over the Eternity Bridge.

Later we got separated with when I had to go back for my umbrella that I'd left in the observation tower.  They wouldn't let me catch up to where Jacquelyn was waiting because the grounds were closing.  So we went down separately not know where the other was.  But we found each other at the bottom near the bridge.

 The cruise continued on and we saw some many interesting sights, but have no idea what this giant head was.  Also we saw an interesting movie, "Last Emperor," that gave us a lot of the history of what happened when they stopped having emperors and had a democracy for a while, then communism.

 That evening was the Captain's Farewell Banquet.  It was really nice and there was this big dinner show.  These are dancing Chinese Dragons.

 The show was put on by the crew and staff, they didn't have seperate entertainers.  They were very good.

We really liked the dinner show.  Our Gate 1 group even got up and did a Texas Line Dance for the Chinese tourists that we had practiced.